


We Met on a Train to Rome

by lil_bonsai



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen, Human AU, Start of a friendship, steampunk-ish setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:00:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26048413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lil_bonsai/pseuds/lil_bonsai
Summary: An Italian, a German and Japanese man walk into a train.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	We Met on a Train to Rome

Italian summers were warm. After winter came spring and everybody rejoiced that the cold had left, hoping it never came back. But when July rolled around, the sun worked as a people-repellent, the exception being tourists. Come August, and the Italian population began counting days as the last summer month approached its curtain call. But it was July now, and as festive and cheerful the sun shone in its midday glory, a young and aspiring artist by the name of Feliciano Vargas released a grand sigh of relief upon entering the cool train wagon. He looked for a free spot as most of the seats were taken, presumably due to people being on summer holiday at this time. Eventually he found a window seat with a table to share with the row opposite of him. How fortunate for him, as this meant that he’d get company at some point.

With a satisfied hum, Feliciano put his suitcase in the overhead storage room before taking off his jacket and beret, finally able to sit down. As he listened to the conversations around him, the linguistic diversity being the most delightful music to his ears, the train slowly started rolling, bidding farewell to the platform. Eventually, Venezia became but a sign that shrinked with every passing second until it was out of sight.

Not too long into the ride, while Feliciano’s eyes followed the quickly passing by landscape, he caught notice of heavy steps approaching him, and stopping.

“Excuse me,” said a deep voice.

Feliciano immediately looked at the unfamiliar man. He had a gentle expression, but his sturdiness added a somewhat harsh finish.

“May I sit here?”

Feliciano beamed at him and urged him to sit down, excited to have attained company so early on in his travel. The man expressed his gratitude with a nod, and sat down on the other side of the table, diagonally opposite of Feliciano.

He had a rigid build, that man; His shoulders were probably double the width of Feliciano’s, and his height was considerable enough that he had to shrink himself slightly in order to not hit his head. However, most interesting of all was the foreignness of his speaking mannerisms and appearance; From the blue eyes that hid behind the glasses, the professionally slicked back, blonde hair, to the fair skin tone, Feliciano guessed he was from the northern of Europe, but didn’t mention it despite his urge to ask. After all, the man seemed so deeply engrossed in whatever work he had ever so quickly pulled out, and Feliciano didn’t want to make a foul impression by disrupting him.

This became the semblance of the next hour and thirty minutes; The man worked diligently, scribbling in a book, while Feliciano stared out the window, fighting a fierce battle against the yearning for conversation. He had tried to make some verbal exchanges by asking the fellow traveler what he was doing, where he was going and the like, but the man answered as briefly as possible, not taking his eyes off of his work. Judging from that, Feliciano concluded that this man simply wasn’t as socially hungry as himself, and hoped that another, more talkative person would come by.

Which it did.

The train arrived at Bologna, and the amount of people Feliciano observed at the platform suggested that the remaining seats around the table would be filled. Curiously listening in on the new people entering the train, a small figure approached the seats.

“Excuse me, may I sit down here?” asked yet another man, small and timid, with a backpack no bigger than a bible hanging on his stomach.

Feliciano patted the seat next to him as a gesture of approval, and the man soundlessly took his rightful place. Again, Feliciano itched to ask him about his circumstances, but kept himself from doing so when the slight man opened his backpack to get a tiny notebook and a pen. Trying his best to be discreet, Feliciano glanced at the pages when the man opened it, not expecting its content to be as striking as it was.

“Pardon, but can I ask what that is?” Feliciano bursted out when he could no longer conceal his interest. The shorter man cast him a surprised glance before smiling calmly. He closed the book and reached it toward Feliciano.

“You may take a look, if you’d like,” he said, his voice as gentle as his face. Now, as an artist, Feliciano was caught a little off-guard when this man allowed him, a stranger, to flip through this very personal-looking book. He accepted it regardless and opened up on the first page.

Even if Feliciano couldn’t understand what he had written, which according to the limited knowledge he had of Asia could be Chinese, he read the symbols and observed the various illustrations of maps, buildings and people. Next to nearly every illustration was a commentary, often lots of arrows pointing to even the most microscopic of details. Especially the maps over Italy and its places had a grand presence, and for a notebook the size of a wallet, the owner sure had managed to cram in a lot of information.

Feliciano looked from the book to the man and back to the book, flipping through it as he spoke.

“This is amazing!” he gasped, laughing a little as he came across a caricature of the Italian prime minister, “What is all this for?”

“I am a novelist,” the man chortled lightly, leaning back in his seat and folding his hands in his lap. Feliciano looked up from the book and observed him briefly. He found the man's facial features to be very devoid of expression, which he thought to be wonderfully ironic considering the man’s passion.

“I am writing a story set in Italy, and my book contains all the information I’ve collected,” the man said, his foreign accent clearer when he spoke a longer sentence. Upon looking at his dark hair and listening to his peculiar way of pronouncing R’s and L’s, the curiosity in Feliciano’s veins bubbled back to the surface, excited to learn everything there was to learn about this man and his culture.

“Where are you from?” Feliciano asked, but realized that once he released his urge to ask, he couldn’t stop. “What’s your story about? What’s your name? Have you been to Italy before? Oh, and, why do you want to write a story set in Italy? Is there are reason for-”

The Japanese man put a stop to his cascading questions by taking Feliciano’s right hand in his own, and looked him kindly in the eyes with a handshake.

“This is how you formally greet people here in Europe, isn’t it?” he asked with a patient smile on his face, “I am Kiku Honda, from Japan.”

Feliciano returned the gesture tenfold by enveloping their handshake with his left hand, giving it a firm and excited squeeze.

“I am Feliciano, from Italy, and I am  _ very  _ curious about what you do!” he replied eagerly and let go of their hands to return the little notebook book to its rightful owner. With a slight nod of appreciation, Kiku took the book and was about to open up to a free page when he caught notice of a pair of curious eyes across the table.

"Excuse me for asking, Mr. Honda, but are you by any chance the author who wrote  _ Blue Pilot _ ?" asked the northerner, and Kiku turned to him.

"Indeed," he replied humbly, to which the other man widened his eyes slightly and raised his eyebrows, seeming to have forgotten all about his work.

"Is that a book?" Feliciano shot in, wondering what he was missing. The northerner turned to him, his whole demeanor having Feliciano questioning if this was the same man that had been so stoic the past hour.

"It's not a very known book in these parts, but my brother and I - both of us being airplane mechanics - Have read  _ Blue Pilot  _ multiple times!" he said, excitement gleaming in his eyes. However, the little stars quickly died out when he regained his calmness, as if trying to protect his rigid image.

"Thank you very much for reading it," Kiku smiled with a slight forward tilt of his head.

"I'm surprised you know about it, though!" Feliciano directed at the stranger whose name had not yet been revealed, switching between looking at the two fellow passengers, "Asian books rarely sell here, aside from a few comics! Also, where are you from?"

The sudden switch in topic sent a pair of surprised looks Feliciano's way, which he of course did not care about. The northerner cleared his throat.

"I'm from Germany," he said. Feliciano exhaled with delight before taking his hand to shake it. " _ E' un piacere conoscerti _ , uh…"

"Ludwig Beilschmidt."

"-Mr. Beilschmidt!"

Feliciano shook his hand prolongedly, taking his sweet time in realizing that Ludwig was anticipating some kind of response. Feliciano eyed him perplexedly.

"I assume common courtesy is to give your name back?" Ludwig inquired.

Feliciano looked at him befuddled for a few seconds, before briefly looking at Kiku and giggling at the charming thought that Ludwig had been so absorbed in his work that he hadn't heard his name.

"I'm Feliciano Vargas!"

This time, it was Kiku's turn to shoot an attentive glance Feliciano's way.

" _ Vargas… _ ?" he uttered thoughtfully.

Feliciano immediately caught his train of thought.

"If you know my name, it's probably because of my older brother, Lovino Vargas," he grinned, hoping he was right so he could proudly boast about his brother.

"I saw his work in an art exhibit four years ago. It was what inspired me to write  _ Blue Pilot _ ," Kiku explained, his voice drawing a fine line between a gasp and an astute reflection. The three of them; Feliciano, Kiku and Ludwig, all exchanged looks for a solid second before bursting into a heartfelt laughter, each of them assuming a comfortable position in their seats.

"We're all connected!" Feliciano beamed before leaning over the table and resting his cheek in his right palm.

"I can't believe this," Ludwig said in between fits of chuckles and wiped a tear from his eye, mirroring Kiku by leaning back and resting his hands in his lap.

They let the sound level come down slightly as they took a few seconds to themselves to watch the landscape pass by like a sped up movie reel. As Feliciano's eyes zoomed across the plains to the majestic mountains in the horizon, a spark just strong enough to be detected spread throughout his chest and into his fingertips. He knew that it was the creative rush, the intuitive moment of inspiration, passing through, but he had no idea of a concept to back up the feeling. All he knew was that this moment brought the feeling of wanting to draw something, the question now was  _ what _ . 

"So your brother is an artist?" Ludwig said and picked up the thread, interrupting Feliciano's introspective drift, but nonetheless pleasing him greatly. The Italian leaned forward on the table, the eagerness coming to the others’ perception when his eyes widened and his speech sounded like 50 people frantically sprinting on treadmills to work his lip flaps.

"My brother and I are both artists, but while I mostly sculpt, Lovino is famous for his paintings of airplanes and the sky," Feliciano said as a certain pride welled up in his wide, golden eyes, "He dropped out of university because he keeps winning in art shows, which pays very generously!"

Lovino Vargas; Most artistic souls in the Latinum region of Italy would recognize upon hearing. He had initially learned how to master art from his brother, but after having won a minor art show in their hometown of Ferrara, Lovino kept working to perfect the craft of painting, and had at the age of 19 won four first prizes in major art exhibits in Rome. Feliciano had initially felt a slight resentment, perhaps jealousy, but realized very quickly that the way he looked at art and the way his brother looked at art, was widely different. While art was more of a serious past-time for the younger of them, to Lovino art was an artstyle in need of pursuit. Feliciano recalled in vivid detail the day he came home after a long day of university lectures, to Lovino standing in the doorway with a huge suitcase saying he'd drop out and chase his dream as a painter.

"Nowadays he lives in Trastevere in Rome, but he wants to move back to Ferrara because he's too introverted to live in the city." Feliciano snickered at the thought and wondered if perhaps Lovino’s love of art could be rooted in his introverted tendencies.

“I assume the intention of your trip is to visit him?” Ludwig asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yes, I haven’t seen him in a year,” Feliciano pouted, lingering on the indication of a sad grimace before bouncing back into liveliness, “But you said you have a brother too, Mr. Beilschmidt! Is he here as well?”

It seemed for a brief moment that Ludwig’s facial features slipped, as if he had reacted bitterly to a foreign food, but it vanished so quickly that it was thanks to Feliciano’s perceptive eye that he caught it. The tall northerner promptly adjusted his position in his seat and crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes averting toward the bypassing, sand-hued infrastructures. Not as an escape to the world of introspection it seemed, but rather as a shield.

“My brother passed away last year,” he mumbled, not meeting the eyes of his fellow travelers. There was no tremble to his voice nor any sign of quivering on his lips, yet the slight absence in his eyes gave away the thoughtful inside of his fortress.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to pry-” Feliciano apologized, but was immediately interrupted by Ludwig returning to his relaxed posture. He held his palm up as a way to keep the Italian from apologizing any further.

“He has always wanted to visit Rome, but his plane crashed before he got there,” he explained as if it were an everyday occurrence, “So I go in his stead.” The serene peace settled around the table would have been uncomfortable, all of them thought, had Ludwig not been so calm and collected about the matter. As Feliciano himself was what a lot of his friends considered “excessively expressive”, he found an appreciation for the fact that there existed people who kept their emotions in check, like Ludwig and Kiku. Like yin and yang, the different traits of wearing their heart on their sleeve, or coming off as a little stoic, was what made the world go around. Or so Feliciano thought.

“How very noble that sounds,” Kiku breathed, tipping his fedora back into place after an indent in the railway pushed it forward. Since Ludwig was sitting right across from him, he caught sight of the book Ludwig had previously been working in, and took an interest in the detailed illustration that was exposed.

"Say," Kiku began and gestured with his eyes to the notebook, which was significantly bigger than his own, "Being a plane mechanic, do you work under a company or are you self-sustained?"

Feliciano had caught onto Kiku's point of interest and had Ludwig slide the book across the table to him when his curiosity bubbled its way to his exterior.

"My brother and I build planes for our own amusement, mostly. We don't want companies to profit off of our work and possibly use it for unjust reasons," Ludwig explained, occasionally casting a glance in the Italian's direction to make sure his book was handled with care.

While Ludwig and Kiku proceeded to spiral into the depths of plane technicalities and adoration, Feliciano observed the drawings with a keen eye. Though much too technical for his tastes, something about the precise lines and measurements combined with the sound of Ludwig talking about his brother as if he were still alive, tugged at his heartstrings. Feliciano had never lost a single thing dear to him in his life; Not a friend, not a family member, not a prized possession. Even with his imaginative mind, he couldn't begin to visualize the deeply rooted pain that came from the unfamiliar emotion called "grief". And when he turned to one of the first pages of the book out of curiosity, he saw a handwriting that was much sharper, bolder and rougher than the one he had been reading till then, which Feliciano could only presume was the handwriting of a hand that no longer had life breathed into them.

"How were you able to capture the appreciation for airborne travel in  _ Blue Pilot  _ so accurately, if I may ask?"

"I had an old neighbor - a sporty Chinese - Who fought countless aerial battles during wars, and I was fascinated by his stories. When I later saw the artwork by Mr. Vargas in the art exhibit, I felt like I had a responsibility to write it."

"Truly amazing."

"I wonder if I'll be able to find that book one day," Feliciano asked no one in particular, letting his voice seep into their conversation after having spent time reflecting about life and the meaning of it. 

"Italy seems to be more multicultural than Germany, so I'm certain you will," Ludwig replied.

Feliciano had struck verbal exchanges during travelling with more strangers than he could count on his hands and feet, but never had he felt as close to them as he did with these two. Perhaps he hadn't been talking with Kiku and Ludwig for more than an hour, but the way they so honestly let each other peer inside their walls evoked a sense of togetherness within his harmony-seeking heart. And the way the conversation flowed so effortlessly with intervals of peaceful silence, it came as a surprise to all of them when the train conductor announced that the next stop was Stazione Termini.

They made it through the station that bustled with life with origins from all around the world, and at last the Italian, the German and the Japanese faced each other under the merciless Italian sun.

"Well, I assume I should say 'thank you' for such a pleasant trip," Ludwig said and bowed forward slightly, his forearm loosely floating across his abdomen, " _ Danke schön _ ." Kiku and Feliciano returned their gratification in their own respective manners. About to turn their backs and embark on the home-stretch toward their final destinations, Feliciano held them back with a prompt "Hold on!"

"What's the matter?" asked Kiku.

"Maybe, one day, if it's not too much hassle," Feliciano started, hesitant but his grin being far too optimistic to be out of nervousness, "Let's have a drink together!"

There was a brief moment of delightfully surprised silence before Kiku smiled and Ludwig nodded knowingly, concluding the encounter with a certain "Of course."

As Feliciano watched their backs become smaller and smaller, blending into the hundreds of people that roamed the street, the feeling that this wasn't their last encounter planted a seed in his heart, and ever so humbly he requested to God that the seed would spring forth.


End file.
